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FCS Week 7 Top Ten Twitter Highlights, Week Of 10/14/2017

Top 10 Twitter Highlights

No. 10.

The Central Connecticut football team played its first overtime since the 2013 season and came away with a 51-45 quadruple overtime victory on the road at Wagner College on Saturday night. Senior Cameron Nash rushed 24 times for 104 yards and three touchdowns, all in overtime, to lead the Blue Devils to their fourth straight win.

With the win the Blue Devils are 4-3 overall and 2-0 in the Northeast Conference. It’s the best NEC start for CCSU since they started 5-0 in 2010. The win is the fourth straight for the Blue Devils, the longest streak since they won five straight during the same 2010 season.

No. 9. Lorran Fonseca kicked a single-game program record five field goals, Dontrell Taylor rushed for 130 yards and the defense came up clutch plays down the stretch, as the No. 23 Nicholls State University football team stayed undefeated at Manning Field at John L. Guidry Stadium with a hard-fought 29-20 victory Saturday in its first-ever meeting with Abilene Christian.

Nicholls trailed only once in the game after Abilene Christian (2-5, 2-3 SLC) scored on the game’s opening drive. A special teams touchdown on a blocked punt by Kevin Johnson tied the game before Taylor and Fonseca provided the points the rest of the way. Taylor scored on a 2-yard rush before halftime to make the score 20-10 and Fonseca delivered three second-half field goals.

No. 8. Sophomore wide receiver Josh Wainwright caught a game-winning 24-yard pass from senior quarterback Anders Hill to give Columbia a 34-31 walk-off, come-from-behind overtime win against Penn Saturday at Robert K. Kraft Field at Lawrence A. Wien Stadium. After Wainwright gathered in the game-winning touchdown, many of the season-high 13,081 fans stormed Robert K. Kraft Field in celebration.

With the win, Columbia improved to 5-0 for the first time since 1996, began Ivy League play at 2-0 for the first time since 1996, snapped a 20-game losing streak to Penn and won its second consecutive Homecoming Game. In its first two Ivy League contests, Columbia has now defeated the two 2016 co-Ivy League champions in Princeton and Penn. It also marked Columbia’s third game won in the final two minutes and represents the Lions’ second walk-off victory of the year.

“We’re making strides, getting more and more resilient and we’re gaining more and more belief in ourselves,” Patricia and Shepard Alexander Head Coach of Football Al Bagnoli said. “It was just a really good day for our program, the institution and our city. I couldn’t be more proud of our players; they did a great job. Kudos to our players.”

No. 7. The Southern Illinois football program ran out to a 21-0 halftime lead and cruised to a 42-7 win over 15th-ranked Illinois State on Homecoming. SIU’s defense forced five turnovers and five 3-and-outs, and the offense piled up 549 yard of total offense in the win.

“I just can’t say enough of how proud I am of the guys in that locker room,” SIU head coach Nick Hill said. “The way that they responded with their backs against the wall. Everyone just stuck to the plan we talked about. This is a process. We’ve taken a step forward with this program in the toughest conference in the country.”

No. 6. It took everything Sam Houston State had on Saturday night. They had just enough.

The ninth-ranked Bearkats stretched their win streak at Bowers Stadium to 15 straight, using a go-ahead, 4-play, 96-yard drive, capped by a one-yard rush from Corey Avery with 1:04 remaining in the fourth quarter to defeat Northwestern State, 40-36.

Sam Houston (5-1, 3-1 Southland) trailed the entire game until the winning drive. It marked the first time the squad had trailed at home entering the fourth quarter and won since Oct. 31, 2009 against Northwestern State (1-5, 1-3).

Jeremiah Briscoe and Davion Davis both cemented their names in Sam Houston football lore. Davis became the third Bearkat receiver and fifth Southland player to catch four touchdowns in a single game. Meanwhile, Briscoe’s career-high 509 passing yards are the second-highest mark by a Bearkat quarterback.

The Panthers have knocked off a top-10 Jackrabbit team in two out of the last three seasons, with the last also coming in Brookings on Oct. 24, 2015 (10-7). The 20-point win against SDSU ranks as the largest margin of victory over a ranked foe since upsetting No. 1 North Dakota State (23-3) on Nov. 8, 2014.

UNI’s Weymiller led the Panthers, with 170 yards rushing and two scores, while Eli Dunne threw two touchdowns through the air for 169 yards passing. The 170 yards for Weymiller were the most for the junior since gaining 171 against Indiana State on Nov. 5, 2016. Weymiller had not carried the ball this season before Saturday’s game.

No. 4. The Thunderbird football team emerged victorious over No. 16/18 Weber State on Saturday night in Ogden, as they claimed the Beehive Bowl trophy with a 32-16 win over their in-state rival.

“It’s a great win,” SUU head coach Demario Warren said following the victory. “We’re right back in the hunt for a Big Sky Championship and we knew that’s what we had to do, we had to go beat a ranked team on the road and we were able to do that.”

Warren added, “We’ve won four of the last five, so we know where we are in the series and we’ve got to make sure we’re getting better each and every week.”

The Thunderbirds are now 4-2 on the season and 2-1 in the Big Sky Conference.

No. 3. Top-ranked James Madison held 11th-ranked Villanova scoreless for three quarters and scored 14 straight points down the stretch to grind out a 30-8 Colonial Athletic Association Football victory on Saturday afternoon in front of 25,993 fans at Bridgeforth Stadium/Zane Showker Field.

The attendance was the second-largest in school history, trailing the 26,069 at JMU’s Oct. 24, 2015 matchup against Richmond.

JMU broke the CAA win-streak record, extending its nation-leading wins mark to 18 wins. That leads all teams both at the FBS and FCS levels. The win was also the 300th for the program.

No. 2. A touchdown by Andre Stoddard with 1:10 left in the game gave the Wofford College football team a 20-16 win over The Citadel at Johnson Hagood Stadium on Saturday night. The Terriers used 219 passing yards to overcome a Bulldog defense that held the Wofford running game to just 99 yards.

Wofford, ranked fifth in the nation, opens the season 6-0 overall and 4-0 in the Southern Conference. The Citadel is 3-3 on the season and 1-3 in the league, with a #22 national ranking. The Terriers were led by Brandon Goodson with 219 yards on 11-of-17 passing, while Lennox McAfee had 59 rushing yards. Jason Hill had five catches for 97 yards and a touchdown. The Bulldogs were led by Jordan Black with 55 rushing yards and he was 4-of-9 passing.

“I wish it was the other way and winning by a lot,” said head coach Mike Ayers. “There is a lot of grit in these guys. They hung in there and they fought through a lot of adversity on that field. Part of that was what The Citadel did – they came ready to play and we struggled on both sides2 of the ball. Fortunately for us we got things going offensively in terms of the passing game. In the second half our defense answered the bell. We were fortunate to come away with another win. It is hard to believe when we started back in August that we would be 6-0. We have a great group, but we have a lot of work to do.”

No. 1. Cam Pedersen’s 36-yard field goal in the first overtime lifted No. 2-ranked North Dakota State to a 27-24 victory over eighth-ranked Youngstown State in the Missouri Valley Football Conference on Saturday, Oct. 14, before a crowd of 16,408 at Stambaugh Stadium.

Quarterback Easton Stick accounted for 172 all-purpose yards including an 80-yard touchdown run on the first play of the fourth quarter that gave NDSU (6-0, 3-0 MVFC) its first lead of the game, 24-17.

Youngstown State (3-3, 1-2 MVFC) tied the game with 1:23 left when Tevin McCaster’s 1-yard run capped a nine-play, 90-yard scoring drive.

Pedersen, who missed his first attempt in OT when Youngstown State called a timeout, delivered his second career game-winning kick. He beat the Iowa Hawkeyes with a 37-yard field goal last year.